Online communities are an extremely powerful tool for solopreneurs and business owners. The community you choose to join should be aligned with your business goals, offering resources and conversations that will contribute to your business growth.
There are many ways that joining an online community will help you grow your business:
- Automatic market research
- Readily available resources
- Guaranteed networking opportunities
- Uplifting peer support
Automatic market research
Market research never really ends. There’s the initial research that needs to be conducted to get a good idea of your customer profiles and the approaches you’ll take to reach them. But, trends are constantly popping up and customer interest is forever waning. If you want to grow your business and remain on top, you need to be aware and adaptable to these changes.
Online communities will help you out with market research no matter what stage your business is at. If your business is in its infancy (or currently just an idea), members of the online community you join can give you an idea of a market you’ve yet to step foot in. There will be experts who have already been there, done that and can now share the pitfalls to avoid with you.
Even if you’ve been running your business for years, being able to bounce ideas off of other professionals in your industry will provide you with valuable insight. Not only will you learn what’s been done before and if it worked, but you’ll also learn why.
Readily available resources
There are three problems with relying solely on your own research to grow your business…
- It takes time you just don’t have
- You might miss things you didn’t know to search for
- The legitimacy of the sources you find can’t always be verified
How does being part of an online community solve these three issues?
- The resources available to you through these communities have been specifically curated for the goal of growing your business and collected together in one, easy-to-access place.
- There are various experts running and part of these communities, all with different experiences and perspectives that will bring in a wealth of knowledge for your benefit.
- These resources are being delivered by people you have built trusting relationships with, your peers who are as committed to business growth as you are. Anything you’re unsure of, you can simply ask for clarification from the person who provided the resource.
Guaranteed networking opportunities
There’s no limit to the networking opportunities available for solopreneurs and business owners via social media. In some ways, that’s part of the problem…Many social media platforms are filled with overwhelming noise that either puts you off trying to grow your network or makes it feel like an impossible task.
The main reason for this is that social media platforms welcome people from all industries, meaning it takes more time and effort to cut through to the industries you actually need. Online communities are built with a common goal or purpose which means everyone joining them will be a connection worth having.
Whichever industry you are growing your business in, there will be an online community dedicated to it. If you are just looking for the common goal of business growth, you already know that you are not alone in this goal if that is the purpose of the community.
Peer support
Growing a business can be an isolating experience, but it doesn’t have to be. Even if you are a team of one and no one in your life has the first clue about what you’re doing, peer support is always available through online communities. The members of these communities will have personal experience with your journey, allowing them to offer support and advice you can trust.
Alongside the practical resources and knowledge they can offer, joining a community of your peers is also an uplifting experience. Sometimes, we stand in the way of our own success and we need someone to help keep us on track.
Growth Titans is a community created specifically for the purpose of furthering business growth. Every resource, member and conversation is dedicated to helping solopreneurs and aspiring business owners make more money and grow their businesses.